If there is one thing all parties in the election can agree on, it is that an independent inquiry is needed to find out whether Judith Collins as Justice Minister was "gunning" for the head of the Serious Fraud Office during its investigation of Mark Hotchin and Hanover Finance. Nobody wants an inquiry more than Ms Collins, who denies doing any such thing, and asked the Prime Minister for just such an investigation when he forced her resignation on Saturday. He might announce its terms in the next day or two but he should not.
We are less than three weeks from an election. The political contest is too highly charged for a cross-party agreement on the terms of reference. National would want to restrict an inquiry to the conduct of Ms Collins but Labour, the Greens and Winston Peters are gunning for John Key. Now that Mr Key has found a private email written by blogger Cameron Slater to be sufficient evidence to sack his Justice Minister, he will find it harder to deny that Slater's versions of dealings with his office warrant a wider exercise.
The right time to set up an inquiry is after the election, when it would happen no matter what side is governing. If National is returned, Mr Key says Ms Collins will not be in his Cabinet, in which case she would still be anxious to clear her name. If Labour and the Greens take power, a more wide-ranging inquisition might be commissioned but it would be a calmer, more objective project than they would agree to in the present climate.
The Prime Minister's staff are already to be quizzed by the Inspector General of Intelligence on the role of his office in the release to Slater of an SIS document that was politically sensitive. Mr Key has not been called to give evidence but he should invite Cheryl Gwyn to interrogate him too.
It is hard to believe the SIS would put political information into the public arena without the Prime Minister's knowledge.